Freezing of phase separation in spatiotemporal stripe patterns formed by Ag and Sb co-electrodeposition

Various spatiotemporal patterns of dark and light stripes are formed in the Ag and Sb co-electrodeposition system. In this research, we investigate the time-evolution of the stripe width of a spatiotemporal stripe pattern with a size of ca. 10 μm. The results show that the stripe width increases with time and is eventually saturated. Such a phenomenon is predicted by some theories of spinodal decomposition of materials with chemical reactions in a nonequilibrium system. This suggests that the pattern is formed by the spinodal decomposition of metal alloys, Ag and Sb, with chemical reactions in a nonequilibrium system, which has not yet been reported in a metallic system.